


An Awkward and Kind of Gay Timeline of Friendship

by strawberrylemonade1225



Series: bmc one shots [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, M/M, Mutual Pining, basically from kindergarten to eleventh grade, haha - Freeform, sorta - Freeform, sorta happy ending anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 04:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrylemonade1225/pseuds/strawberrylemonade1225
Summary: Of kinetic sand and awkward crushes, this is a flashback on some of Jeremy and Michael's important moments throughout the years of their friendship.





	An Awkward and Kind of Gay Timeline of Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> *dabs*
> 
> edit:: apparently this is.... sadder than I thought so...... be warned

**Kindergarten**  
  
Michael really sucks at making friends. He's only six years old too, so that's honestly rather confusing. All of his classmates have a few friends, in fact, the whole class seems to be friends with each other.

Well… except him. He doesn't have any friends in this class. He doesn't have any friends at all.

He's confused about a lot of things, such as how jumpy he feels around other people. His mom usually described it as him being shy, but he doesn't know too much about that either, so that's just the word he uses.

It's during recess towards the end of the year and he's sitting on the edge of the sand box and watching with wonder as sand falls from his hand like water.

A teacher walks up to him and smiles sweetly, crouching down in front of him. He stares at her wide eyed, not saying anything, face blank.

“Why don't you ever play with your friends during recess?” she asked him and he shrugged.

“I don't have any,” he simply says and her smile twitches. She doesn't say anything, and Michael goes back to scooping up sand and letting it fall from between his fingers. Hands are weird, he thinks.

“Well…” the teacher says, and he looks up at her again. Her face seems bright. “A new student came today! Why don't you befriend him?”

“My mom says I'm shy.”

“He is too! See, he's coming this way!”

Michael looks to where she's pointing and sees a small kid walking towards them. He wears a ridiculously oversized blue sweater and jeans. His hair is brown and hangs over one of his eyes, which are blue, like his sweater.

The kid reaches them, and Michael's just staring at him. The kid seems nervous, and jumpy, flinching when he meets Michael's eyes.

“Michael, this is Jeremy. Jeremy, this is Michael,” the teacher introduces. Jeremy stills even more, and they keep staring at each other. “Why don't you two become friends?”

Jeremy looks between the teacher and Michael before walking over and plopping down onto the wooden edge that Michael's sitting on. He shoves up the sleeves of his sweater and digs his hands into the sand. Satisfied with that change, the teacher nods and stands up, walking to join the other teachers.

After a bit, Jeremy looks up to Michael again, who's still looking at him wide eyed.

“Hi,” Jeremy says, and Michael's eyes squint.

“Jer… Jerry,” he struggles and Jeremy shakes his head.

“Germy,” he corrects, and Michael nods, fully understanding it now.

He giggles at the pronunciation and goes back to his own pile of sand, going back to scooping it up and letting it fall.

“Why are you doing that?” Jeremy asks and Michael does it again, but with more sand. Jeremy watches closely and gasps. _“Woah!”_

“Yeah!”

They spent the rest of recess playing with sand and finding how many weird ways they could let it drain. When they had to leave to go to their separate classes, Michael hugged Jeremy.

“You're my best friend!” he exclaims and Jeremy jumps up and down, grinning.

“You're _my_ best friend!”

Michael went home that day and told his parents all about his new friend. They got nearly as excited as he did, and looking back on it now, he thinks they may have just been glad that their son finally, _finally_ got a friend.

Little Michael wasn't worried about that though. He just wanted to go back the next day and see Jeremy.

He was going to bring some of his kinetic sand with him. He couldn't wait to see Jeremy's reaction to that magic.

***

_**Second Grade** _

Jeremy had a really cool lunch box. It was video game themed, and Jeremy knew Michael would love the Nintendogs on it.

He was super excited to show it off to Michael, and he did just that when they got to lunch.

The two of them sat at one of the two tables for their class. The table was the lesser crowded one, and they mostly kept to each other anyway. Occasionally they would talk to the other people around them, but that was rare.

Not that Jeremy minded. He liked talking to Michael.

Michael and Jeremy sat across from one another, Jeremy holding up the lunch box. Michael gasped and clapped like he hoped he would.

“That's epic, Germy!” he near shouts. Jeremy grins wide and nods his head before he got hung up on the last part of the sentence.

“I think my name's pronounced ‘Jer-ah-me’,” he told him, awkwardly sounding it out. “My mom heard you calling me ‘Germy’ and said that was wrong.”

Michael tilted his head, scrunching up his eyebrows. “Jer… Jer-a-may.”

Jeremy shook his head. “My mom also said that ‘Jer’ is a shortened version, so you can call me that.”

“I want to call you ‘Germy’, though,” Michael pouts and Jeremy smiles at him.

“Then that's your special nickname for me!”

“Awesome!” Michael's practically bouncing in his seat, and Jeremy decides that he's okay with the stay as Germy in Michael's book.

Besides, Germy _is_ a pretty epic nickname.

***

_**Third Grade** _

Michael's invited to a sleepover, so, by relation, so is Jeremy.

Actually, the boys in Michael's class were invited, and he asked if he could bring Jeremy too since they weren't in the same class, and the boy (Ivan) hosting the sleepover shrugged and said, “sure”.

So Michael's mom drove them to Ivan’s house, kissing the both of them on the forehead and walking them inside. Lucky for Michael, he wasn't the type to get embarrassed by his mom, so he was fine. Jeremy was a nervous kid in general, so he was fidgeting and holding onto the back of Michael's shirt as they walked.

His mom did leave after meeting Ivan’s parents, and Ivan came up to the two of them, ushering them into the basement where a few other boys from Michael's class were.

There was a flickering television and four of them were playing Mario Kart. Michael heard Jeremy gasp softly from beside him and he giggled when he remembered how big of a Mario Kart nerd Jeremy is.

So far, the sleepover was going great.

Jeremy was kicking butt in Mario Kart, another kid named Rich was trying and failing to play pool due to his height, and another kid was chugging a soda. Michael was sitting butterfly style on the couch and cheering for Jeremy.

Slowly but surely, it got later and later.

And later… and later.

By one AM, the majority of them were asleep. In fact, by one-ten, Ivan passed out, meaning Jeremy and Michael were the only ones awake.

They lay on the floor in sleeping bags, Michael and Jeremy next to one another. They faced each other, and Michael silently stared at Jeremy's blurry outline in the dark. Jeremy was looking at the ceiling before looking back at Michael and whispering to him.

“I can't fall asleep,” he confesses and Michael awkwardly nods from his laying position.

“Me neither.”

They go quiet after that. Michael looks away, and he comes up with an idea. He looks back over to Jeremy to voice his plan when the words abruptly die on his tongue.

(The plan was pretty dumb. He thinks it was going to be something like play Pokémon on his Gameboy, which would just wake them up more than lulling them to bed.)

Jeremy's crying. He's crying silently, more like tears skidding across his face weirdly at the angle he's in. Michael's suddenly scared.

“What happened- Why are you crying?” he asks with some kind of urgency in his voice. Jeremy shudders and reaches out, Michael closing the gap and covering his hand with his own.

“I'm- I'm scared. I don't want to stay here a-anymore!” he whispers again and Michael squeezes his hand.

“I can call my mom to get us,” he offers and Jeremy shakes his head.

“I'll- I'll be fine. I'm nine now… I can- I can handle this… I don't want to take away fr-from your fun.”

Michael slowly stands up then, and the boy next to him twitches. He stills, and the boy goes quiet, Michael sighing out of relief. He stands up fully and reaches down for Jeremy, helping the shaking boy up. Jeremy leans on him, hand clutching the back of his shirt, and Michael supporting most of his weight. Michael gathers both of their bags and puts on his glasses. They make their way up the stairs quietly, seeing the light in the kitchen still on.

“Jeremy, stomp on my foot,” Michael mumbles and Jeremy shakes his head rapidly. “Dude, they might not let me call if I’m not crying too!”

Jeremy hesitates for a few more seconds before he stomps down on Michael’s foot. It doesn’t actually hurt that bad, but Michael pushes himself a little bit, and soon he’s crying as well.

The two of them walk into the kitchen, interrupting the conversation between Ivan’s parents. His dad notices the two of them and he rushes over, kneeling down.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he asks them, and Michael answers since all Jeremy’s saying is incoherent blubbering.

“We- we wanna go home! Can I call my mom?”

“Of course, sweetie,” Ivan’s mom says, dialing Michael’s mom’s number. They had exchanged numbers before hand just in case something like this happened.

Quite surprisingly, she ended up being awake and arrived at the house in about ten minutes. Michael sat with Jeremy on the steps, Jeremy mostly calmed down by now, just whimpering a little. Michael was chattering excitedly about something, though, and Jeremy said that that really helped him when he reminisced about the moment.

They get into the car, and his mom looks at them worriedly through the mirror before driving.

“What happened, boys?” she asks softly and Jeremy answers this time, equally as soft.

“I got- I got scared. I could’ve han-handled it, though!”

“Germy wasn’t the only one scared.” Michael shoots Jeremy a smile, and Jeremy looks confused. “We both wanted to leave.”

  
His mom seems to accept the answer and asks a few more questions. Michael easily answers them all, and his mom pulls into 7-11. Both of them cheer when they enter the store, running toward the slushy machine.

“I want cherry and blue raspberry. Do you think grape would be good with it?” Michael questions, talking quickly. He looks over at Jeremy, who’s looking down at the floor and scuffing his shoes.

“Why’d you lie?” he quietly asks and Michael laughs.

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re my best friend, dude, I won’t let you go through that stuff alone.” Michael turns back to the slushy machine. “Oh! What if I add coke?”

Michael winds up getting a monstrosity of a slushy while Jeremy, a lawful good of the time, gets one flavor.

(They don’t about how Jeremy hugged Michael tightly and didn’t let go until Michael’s mom called for them. They sure remember it, though.)

***

_**Fourth Grade** _

“Jer, spell ICUP.”

“What? What’s an ICUP?”

Michael smirks from behind the sandwich in his hands. “I don’t know, bro, just spell it!”

“Um… okay? I-C-U-P…?” Michael can see the exact moment it clicks in Jeremy’s head because the boy turns bright red and swats at Michael’s arm across the table. “G-Gross!”

Michael laughs loudly and takes a bite. He remembers the second one and grins wide, talking right away.

“What’s your name?” It comes out weird, there being food still in his mouth. Jeremy scrunches up his nose.

“Jeremy…?”

Michaels grin grows fractionally. “What’s the color of the sky?”

“... Blue.”

“What’s the opposite of down?”

“Up.”

“Jeremy… blew… up!” he proudly states and Jeremy groans dramatically, smiling anyway.

“R-rude, Michael!”

“I try, Germs.”

***

_**Fifth Grade** _

Jeremy has a problem with stuttering.

Well, Jeremy didn’t view it as a problem, but apparently, his mom and his school did. He got a paper from his teacher one day about the Speech program at his school to take home to his parents, and he was tempted to crumple it up before Michael talked him out of it.

“How bad could it be?” Michael asks, both hands holding onto his backpack straps as they walk to the buses. “Plus, you might get in trouble if you just throw it away.”

“T-Trouble?”

“The teacher _did_ give it to you,” Michael points out and Jeremy's eyes run over the page one more time.

“Fine. I'll bring it home.” He folds it and sticks it into his pocket. He shrugs and smiles. “How bad _could_ it be?”

Very bad, apparently.

Their Speech program sucked. It was run by a few teachers who, honestly, didn’t seem to really want to be there. Jeremy thinks they were just told “You’re in charge of a speech program now” and they just had to roll with it.

Moving on from that, they had no clue how to change anything/help Jeremy with his stuttering. He was literally the only kid that was a part of this speech program.  
  
(The paper he got was really sketchy looking, but it seems like his mom just wanted to get rid of his stutter. Was it really that bad?)

They got all of their methods from WikiHow.

You think Jeremy’s kidding? Well, he’s not. They had pulled up WikiHow once during one of his very fun sessions.

(By the way… these sessions took away recess one day each week, which ultra sucked.)

“Jeremy, I am going to give you a book,” said Mr. Welsh. He held out a book. _Charlotte’s Web._ “Read this aloud to yourself for thirty minutes each day.”

“Sir, I’ve- I’ve already read this-”

“Read it again.”

Fun times, really.

During June of fifth grade, Jeremy had actually gotten better at controlling his stutter. That didn’t stop him from being ecstatic when he found out that he would not have to continue with the speech program in middle school.

He was able to talk smoother now, but his stutter did overwhelm him whenever his emotions came on too strong, which was… all the time.

Point is… WikiHow actually managed to help. Huh.

“I don’t know why your mom pushed this speech thing on you,” Michael randomly says one day. They’re at a park, and their moms are chatting to one another by the car and out of hearing range.

“Hm?”

“I mean… it was kinda dumb. What’s so wrong with your stutter? It’s just a way you talk, dude, it’s like that Rich kid. It doesn’t hurt anyone. I thought it was cute!”

“UH?”

This would be one of those examples of Jeremy being overwhelmed with emotion. His face goes red and he’s just staring at Michael with a perplexed expression. Michael looked over at him and shrugged.

“What?”

“‘Cute’?”

“Am I not allowed to say that?”

Jeremy doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just kicks off on the ground to start swinging. He hears Michael laugh and starts swinging along with him.

(“Did you- Do you- Did you really think it was cute back then?”

“Jer, I was a young gay in the making, I thought it was absolutely _adorable._ Still is.”

“O-Oh.”)

***

_**Sixth Grade** _

Michael’s going to pee himself.

Not cause he’s a little kid anymore, no, he is the old age of twelve.

He’s going to pee himself because he walked to Jeremy’s house only for Jeremy to open the door dressed like… _this._

Here’s the rundown:

Jeremy’s usually curly hair is straightened. His bangs are cut (styled?) to hang over part of one eye, and that section of hair is bright green. He borrowed his mom’s eyeliner, and now he has raccoon eyes. He somehow got his hands on a fake piercing, which he’s rocking on his lip.

Needless to say, Michael’s dying on Jeremy’s porch.

“What?” Jeremy asks in what Michael can only guess is supposed to be a tough voice. Michael snorts then and tries to straighten up a bit.

“What- What the _heck_ are you wearing?”

Jeremy goes a bit red and he crosses his arms across his chest self-consciously. “I-I read that this was cool. Is it really tha-that bad?”

Michael automatically feels guilty. Well, maybe not guilty, but it feels like someone… chained up his heart…? If that makes sense? He just feels really bad, and he doesn’t know why.

He quickly straightens up his attitude and shakes his head. “No way, dude, it’s just… that eyeliner is a little… extreme. Can I fix it?”

 _Good cover-up,_ he thinks, nodding internally.

(Why did it affect him so much to see Jeremy upset like that? It was literally just an outfit and makeup.)

Jeremy hesitates for a second before he nods and leads Michael inside. They walk into Jeremy’s parents’ room, and Michael sees his mom’s eyeliner on the dresser, as he assumed. He looks around (a parent’s room, scandalous) and furrows his eyebrows.

“Where're your parents?”

“Work,” Jeremy answers simply an goes to stand in front of the mirror. He starts wiping at his eyes with what Michael assumes is a makeup wipe. He gets the majority of the black smudge off his eyes before he sits on the edge of the bed, sighs, and closes his eyes. “Go ahead.”

(If Jeremy doesn’t stop trying to do a tough voice, Michael’s going to break.)

Michael walks up, wielding the pencil liner, and about to go to work. He likes doodling, and he’s pretty decent at it, so he should be able to make it look presentable, at the very least.

Michael realizes a few things rapid fire as he puts the pencil against Jeremy’s eyelid:  
1\. Michael is going to have to hold Jeremy’s face while he does this.  
2\. Jeremy has long eyelashes.  
3\. Jeremy also has really faint freckles scattered on his cheeks.  
4\. This is the closest Michael’s face has ever been to Jeremy’s face.  
5\. Oh, so this is what a crush feels like.

Oh.

OH.

Michael scrambled back and the pencil clattered on the ground. Jeremy, having obviously heard the hurried footsteps and the pencil, shot his eyes open and rushed over to Michael, who back was pressed against the wall by this point. His breathing was heavy, and he had no idea what was happening, but he _did not like it._

Jeremy was saying something, Jeremy was talking to him, and he could hear his voice, it was just muffled like he was speaking to Michael from outside of a glass box. He was also shaking Michael’s shoulders, but Michael didn’t really register that part.

He just knew that he had a crush on Jeremy, a crush on the kid he has known for seven years now, who was a boy. Was that even allowed? Could he have a crush on a boy?

(2013

“J-Jer?”

“Are you crying? Why are you crying?”

“Remember when I told you I was- was gay?”

“Yeah?”

“They just legalized gay marriage in New Jersey!”)

Eventually, he calmed down. By that point, though, both him and Jeremy were ugly crying. Also by that point, Jeremy’s dad got home.

Michael had his “gay awakening”, as he liked to call it, when he first saw Jeremy’s new style for his emo phase and tried to put eyeliner on him.

What an experience.

***

_**Eighth Grade** _

There’s this insanely pretty girl named Christine. She skips down the hallways and she sings a lot of things either under her breath or out loud. Once, she had to work with Jeremy for an in-class poster project, and she made a song about the U.S. president from 1881-1885, Chester A. Arthur, and sang that quite loudly while working.

Jeremy doesn’t want to say he was completely heart eyes for her, as Michael put it, but… he kind of was.

She feels really familiar to him, even though she only moved to his town last year. It’s really confusing, so Jeremy decides to list off things about her that are familiar to him.

So far he’s got:  
\- loves music  
\- pretty brown eyes  
\- gets excited over small things  
\- loud  
\- dramatic  
\- goofy

He racks his brain, trying to see how those traits connect to some sense of familiarity. He closes his eyes and lays his forehead on the desk.

A faceless person appears in his mind. They have large white headphones on, and they’re dancing to music that Jeremy can’t hear, but it’s really bad dancing, and he can tell they’re doing it on purpose because of the large goofy grin that appears on their face.

They feel equally familiar, so he checks “loves music” and “goofy” off his list.

Now his visioning a memory he had in an arcade. He’s playing a two player game with them, a first person shooter. They chose vs. mode, and currently, they’re beating him.

They’re shouting and jumping up and down as they play. Their voice is muffled, so Jeremy can’t tell who they are. They win and they pump their fist into the air, doing a little victory dance. Jeremy joking shoves them and they gasp, falling backward.

A check to “dramatic” and “loud”.

Another memory. They’re facing away from him, and they’re wearing a… red hoodie. With a polar bear on the back and a gay pride patch on one arm, a Pac-man patch on the other, from what he can see.

They turn around, and Jeremy is met with a familiar large grin and wide brown eyes behind thick glasses lenses. The boy is holding a soda bottle that appears to be filled with fizzy water, but has a… Pepsi label?

“Look, Jer! Crystal Pepsi!” he shouts and Jeremy jolts up, eyes shooting open and heart racing in his chest.

Michael.

_He liked Christine because she reminded him of Michael._

Normally, he wouldn’t curse, but he can’t stop himself from muttering out a small “fuck.”

Oh God, this was not good, this was definitely not-

Jeremy grabs his pen and makes another dash on the list, handwriting sloppy.

\- a girl

“Alright, Jeremy,” he said aloud to himself. “He’s your best friend, and he’s a boy. Yeah, he might be gay, but you can’t be gay and straight, and you got a crush on Christine first, so you’re straight.”

(“Did you seriously not know what bisexuality was when you were in eighth grade?”

“I was an under educated fourteen-year-old, Michael, sue me.”)

Okay, okay, he was going to be okay. He just connected them because he has strong feelings for the two of them in totally different senses.

Yeah.

That was the case.

***

_**Ninth Grade** _

Alright, so, Michael was screwed.

He’s had a crush on Jeremy since sixth grade, and on this fine Monday morning of winter break, he woke up to see Jeremy’s face really close to him, promptly freaked out, ran into the bathroom, and had a groundbreaking realization.

“I’m in love with him,” Michael mutters to himself, crouching in the corner of the bathroom and holding his head in his hands. His vision is blurry, and he’s not sure if it’s because of tears or because of the fact that his glasses are in the other room. “Holy shit, I’m _in love with him.”_

He doesn’t get a whole lot of time to go over that notion before the bathroom door is swung open to reveal a very tired Jeremy.

Jeremy’s standing there in shorts and an oversized t-shirt, rubbing at his eyes and with half of his hair sticking up, and boy, oh boy, if Michael had forgotten he was gay, he suddenly remembered.

Just looking at Jeremy lasts a short time as well because soon enough, Jeremy is kneeling in front of him and holding his shoulder’s tight, looking into his eyes and speaking to him calmly.

(He’s gotten a lot better at handling this kind of situation since sixth grade. He kind of had to; the two of them had a lot going on.)

((Read: bullying and self-esteem issues paired with depression and anxiety.))

Michael doesn’t listen to what he’s saying, just reaching out and hugging Jeremy, pulling him forward. Jeremy hugs right on back, and Michael’s clutching at the back of his t-shirt, and he feels like they’re third graders all over again.

He wishes they could be third graders again; he didn’t have all these emotions back then. Plus, he still had a functioning Gameboy, so that’s a plus.

Later, Jeremy asks what triggered his freak out in the morning, and he kind of smiled sadly and looked down at the controller in his hands. He rolled one of the joysticks in circles as he bullshitted his answer.

“A nightmare.”

***

_**Tenth Grade** _

Jeremy has always loved the summer.

He always goes down to the beach and stays in a hotel with Michael and his mom for a weekend, and it’s always his favorite weekend of the summer.

This year, they’ve been deemed old enough to have their own separate room across the hall from Ms. Mell, so in the early afternoon of Friday, Jeremy flops down onto the hotel bed and just laughs, grinning from ear to ear.

“You excited?” Michael asks, grinning as well and Jeremy sits up and nods.

“Hell yeah.”

The first night they spend by walking the length of the boardwalk, stopping into random stores and taking silly pictures. Michael gets fries for them to share at one point and throws one out for a seagull, which leads to a whole flock of seagulls following them and Michael deeming himself the seagull king.

Jeremy's glad that he is now educated on what bisexuality is.

At one point, they get slushies from this one store and walk to the other side of the boardwalk facing the ocean and dangle their legs off of it. Jeremy rests his chin on the metal bar of the railing and looks at Michael from the corner of his eyes.

The moon shines on his face and he looks so genuinely happy. His headphones hang around his neck and he wears a striped t-shirt in place of his hoodie. His hair is ruffled from the wind and his glasses rest on the edge of his nose. He's also talking about something, and the joyful curve of his mouth captures all his attention.

Jeremy doesn't even realize that Michael's looking back at him until he tunes back in to hear the end.

“-isn’t that fucked up?”

“What?” he asks, intelligently, and Michael gives him a funny look.

“I was just ranting about it; the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ saying is actually a lot worse than ‘innocent until proven guilty’.”

“Oh! Right! Yeah, that is fucked up.”

“Dude, where were you? I’ve been ranting for the past five minutes about it,” Michael says with a little laugh at the end that does nothing to ease Jeremy. Jeremy's face becomes red as he realizes that that means that he had been staring at Michael for _five full minutes._ Michael seems to catch onto the embarrassed thing and he laughs. “Oh my God, you were fantasizing about Christine!”

“Was-” Jeremy was about to say “was not”, but knowing Michael, he’d say something like “then what were you thinking about”, and saying he was thinking about Christine was a lot easier than confessing about his crush on Michael. Besides, he had a crush on her as well, so it made sense. He turns away bashfully and looks at the sand beneath his feet.

He wants to go back to Kindergarten when he first met Michael and they geeked out about kinetic sand on the pavement during recess daily. That was simpler.

Michael laughs again and Jeremy looks up and over to him to see him staring at the sky. He’s quiet now, and he isn’t… smiling anymore. He actually looks kind of sad. It confuses Jeremy, and Jeremy wants to ask about it but… he doesn’t. He stays quiet as well.

(“I regret not saying anything to you back then.”

“It’s fine, dude, you didn’t know what was up.”

“That’s not a validated excuse, Michael.”)

Anyway… the weekend passes quickly. It’s the best time, and he comes home happy, exhausted, and sunburnt. Michael teased him for his permanently red face, saying “I see nothing has changed” and hugged him tightly when he got out of the car on Monday morning to go home. The hug felt… different from their others. More emotional, more… meaningful.

Jeremy ignores that and doesn’t understand the feeling of fear he gets as he walks up the stairs to his front door. He chalks it down to his crush until he shoves his key in the lock and steps inside.

He hears the crunch of glass and lifts his foot to find a shattered family photo. He locks the door behind him and slowly walks into the house, seeing a broken vase down the hall, dirt spilled on the carpet and plant dead.

The fear rises, and only the worst thoughts plague his mind.

He eventually gets to the kitchen, which is a mess as well. His dad sits at the dining room table, head in his hands and taking deep breaths.

“Dad?” Jeremy asks quietly, and it comes out as more of a squeak. His dad jumps to his feet and spins around to face him, forcing a smile.

“Jeremy! I didn’t know you were-”

“What happened?” Jeremy looks around the room before looking back to his dad, whose face is carefully blank, and Jeremy realizes something else. “Wait, where’s mom?”

“Jeremy… your mom and I have…”

Jeremy drops his bag on the floor, along with his jaw. He goes to say something, and then he notices the absence of a wedding ring on his dad’s finger. It left a tan line behind. Jeremy doesn’t even realize when he starts crying.

Jeremy absolutely _hates_ the summer.

***

_**Eleventh Grade** _

**me: i know ur ignoring me**  
**me: and i dont know why**  
**me: but its really messed up**  
**me: answer me you furry**  
**me: ill plaster ur secrets on the bulletin board and Christine eill see them**  
**me: u wouldn't want that**  
**me: just kidding would never do that to you**  
**me: I'm just hurting don't mind me**  
**me: actaully please mind me please respond**

 **me: im a pretty patient guy Jer**  
**me: but im not going to always be here waiting for you**  
**me: don't know if you know this but this is actually killing me**  
**me: because I love you so much**  
_**(You have deleted two messages.)** _  
**me: Even I have my limiys.**  
**me: please, for the life of god, please get back to me.**

 **me: u haven't talked yo me all.month**  
**me: oh, you get a Squip, now ur too fuckin cool for ur best friend**  
**me: the guy who's been there for yiu for everything**  
**me: now u hav this brand new group of people who once bullied the ever living shit out of you for friends**  
**me: really living the dream, huh, Germy**  
**me: what happened to not being too cool for video games?**  
**me: what happened to you?**

 **me: noe marks a month and a half**  
**me: they're coming out with a sequel for AotD**  
**me: it's supposed to be before the apocalypse**  
**me: we can finally find out about the main characters dramatic backstory**  
**me: you must have a level three friendship to unlock his tragic backstory, you know**  
**me: haha**  
**me: …**  
**me: this really fucking sucks.**

 **me: fuck this.**  
**me: i give up.**

Michael stared down at his phone screen. The bathroom tiles were cold on his legs.

**Delete _jerrynmike?_**

**Album deleted.**

**Delete _♡♡♡?_**

**Album deleted.**

**Delete _itsmyboy?_**

**Contact deleted.**

Delete his hope?

Deleted.

His nose twitched and he smelled smoke. He half considered staying in the bathroom and just seeing what happened, but he didn't. He crawled out the window and walked home, thinking that the smoke was just coming from a joint or a cigarette or something.

He didn't really care, to be honest.

***

_**Eleventh Grade** _

Jeremy feels like he's missing a chunk of himself when he wakes up. The ceiling is a blank white with weird stains, and there's a monotonous beeping. It sounds like a heart monitor.

He shoots up into a sitting position and immediately regrets it. It hurts like a motherfucker.

His hospital experience was a roller coaster on its own. Rich comes out to him, he reconnected with his best friend, his dad nearly eats moldy pudding before Jake, who was visiting Rich, points out the mold on the bottom, and Brooke and Chloe visit once, Brooke kissing his forehead and Chloe on her phone the whole time.

One of his last days there, Michael visits and pushes him in a wheelchair to this one lounge section outside.

(He doesn't know why they made him continue to use it, he means; he was getting out of there next week. They made have forced him to use it considering the fact that he could barely walk, but, being a moody/rebellious teen, he still complained about it.)

Lucky for them, no one else is there when they arrive, so Michael sat down on a couch and pushed Jeremy to be right beside him. Surprising Jeremy is how he didn't move to the other side of the couch and away from Jeremy, but instead stayed right next to him.

“How can you stand to be this close to me after… _everything?”_ Jeremy asks, voice very small. Michael looks over at him, surprised, and stares back at the floor.

“What, was I supposed to sit on the other end of the couch?” Michael laughs out and Jeremy considers his options for a second before reaching out and putting his hand over Michael's on the arm rest. Michael's head whips back over to him, and he squeezes his hand.

“I'd understand if you did that. I really hurt you, without even thinking about it. I deserve some kind of repercussion for what I did, I mean, you're my _best friend.”_

“That's the thing. You _are_ my best friend, and that's why I'm doing this. You've apologized to me every single time I stepped foot into your room, and you keep looking at me like this sad deer, like I'm just going to up and leave. Well, spoiler alert Germy, I'm not going anywhere.”

Jeremy just stares at him for a few seconds before he sniffs and a smile splits his face. He lifts his other hand and wipes at his eyes. Michael turns away from him with a soft smile, properly holding his hand and intertwining their fingers.

(“I wanted to kiss you when you visited me in the hospital towards the end, you know?”

“Well, why didn't you?”

“I was scared. Michael, I had just gotten you back and I didn't want to lose you again.”)

Jeremy awkwardly lays his head on Michael's shoulder, and Michael lays his own head on Jeremy's head, and they somehow manage to fall asleep like that.

They're found by a nurse past visitation hours and they're woken up, Michael pushing Jeremy up to his room before he has to leave.

Michael kneels down and hugs Jeremy tight before going. “I love you, okay dude? I'm not going to leave as easily as you think I am.”

“I-I love you too.”

Michael leaves and Jeremy gets into his bed, falling asleep nearly as soon as his head hits the pillow with a smile still on his face.

***

_**Eleventh Grade** _

**me: im not mad at you anymore**  
**me: maybe a little bit**  
**me: im going to delete this so you can't see it anyway so i might as well get everything off my chest**  
**me: you and Christine would make a cute pair, and I know she's going to agree when you ask her out when you get out of the hospital**  
**me: I know I'm going to feel awkward in your new friend group so I'm probably going to act like that when we do return to school**  
**me: I'm so in love with you that it. Hurts? To think about?**  
**me: Oh God.**  
**me: I just.**  
**(You deleted eight messages.)**  
**me: I'm glad I was lucky enough to get a best friend like you, Jeremy.**

**Author's Note:**

> *dabs in the other direction*


End file.
